A de facto curfew has been forced in Pakistan’s port town of Gwadar after a clampdown on a local rights movement, forming a shadow over a crucial destination for China’s Belt and Road infrastructure investment. The government of Balochistan, has imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, a draconian colonial-era law that permits a ban on all kinds of rallies and protests. Police have reportedly arrested over 100 supporters of the movement. In addition, as reported on January 3, Police of Gwadar have registered an FIR against Haq Do Tehreek leader Maulana Hidayat ur Rehman on charges of murder, attempt to murder, provoking the people for violence and other charges. For over 50 days, a sit-in protest outside the main entrance of the Gwadar port was ongoing before the protests turned violent during the last week of December, 2022 resulting in clashes between the police and the protesters. The sit-in was staged by the Haq Do Tehreek (Gwadar Rights Movement), which is appeared to be a popular activist movement over the last couple of years in the Gwadar city. Gwadar is extolled as the heart of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and widely seen as the main plank of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but local people of Balochistan have long felt cut off from any benefits and paybacks that status bequeaths on Gwadar. The city is often projected as a ‘future Dubai’ in the region, but the increasing poverty of its people tells a different story. Gwadar’s people remain deprived of access to clean water and other rudimentary facilities. Unfortunately, Gwadar being a center of economic development didn’t manage to change the fate of its people. Rather, it became the cause of frustration over local people’s estrangement from the local development projects, which are mostly managed by the Chinese or officers from other provinces of Pakistan. The Haq Do Tehreek has been staging protests for several demands, including the banning of illegal trawlers in Balochistan’s waters, a reduction of security checkpoints, as well as the liberalization of trade with neighbouring Iran. Balochistan is territorially the largest province of Pakistan. It is rich in natural resources and thinly populated. In recent decades, the people of this province have alleged that non-Balochis, especially those from Punjab, rule over the province and the benefits of economic developments do not reach the locals. As a result, the province is home to a low-intensity but tenacious insurgency movement. The Pakistani government, particularly the military and its intelligence agencies, has picked up Balochistan’s educated people and civil society activists, who often disappear without a trace. Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf worsened the issue further by ordering the assassination in August 2006 of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a widely respected Balochi leader who had served as the province’s governor and chief minister as well as the defence minister of Pakistan. The residents of Gwadar from all walks of life experience desolation also. One of those issues is the omnipresent refrain of “Kaha ja rahe ho? Kaha se a rahe ho?” (Where are you going? Where are you coming from?). This attitude symbolizes the constant surveillance that the people were under within their own city, being interrogated constantly at security checkpoints. Also, the fishermen have been facing numerous problems, like being required to have tokens and being assigned fixed time for accessing the sea for fishing. Residents of the port city also complain about being deprived of basic facilities, from healthcare to electricity to clean drinking water. Worryingly, earlier in 2016, the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) endorsed the anxiety of demographic change in their report, which predicted Chinese would outnumber native Baloch by the year 2048.[8] The FPCCI report said conservatively 0.44 persons per thousand migrate from China because of economic reasons that verifies the inflow of more than 600,000 people per year in Pakistan after operating the CPEC. Led by Maulana Hidayat ur Rehman Baloch leader of Haq Do Tehreek, (he is also the general secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami in Balochistan) who has emerged as a popular face of resistance among the masses, the demonstrators blocked the main airport road, and the road leading to the port. The Maulana had also asked the Chinese to leave the airport. He is critical of the heightened security and pointless check posts in the port city of the country as well. The sit-in was peaceful until Rehman closed the main entry road to Gwadar port and asked Chinese nationals to leave the port city. Rehman and his followers also showed up with weapons and threatened armed resistance if their demands were not met. The Gwadar Rights Movement was established in August 2021 to protest on behalf of the local population, voicing protests. In 2021, Hidayat ur Rehman, led a similar protest that lasted for 32 days. Some improvement was made, but many of the issues continued to aggravate. On October 27, 2022, Rehman and his followers started another sit-in, condemning the government of going back on its promises. When the sit-in entered its 25th day, tens of thousands of protesters, including women and children, blocked an expressway leading to the Gwadar port as the government failed to meet the deadline to implement the demands. Nevertheless, it continued to December and matters turned ugly on December 26, 2022 following a strike call, as police and the protesters faced off. The law enforcers resorted to tear-gassing demonstrators as a mob tried to attack a police station, resulting in several arrests. While critics say the Hidayat ur Rehman, has political aspirations, the fact is that he has struck a chord with the people of Makran, who feel the establishment-backed politicians, as well as the nationalists, have failed to deliver. Gwadar has also been cut off from the rest of the country as the authorities have suspended not only the internet service and the mobile phone networks but also the landline in all four port cities of the Makran division–Gwadar, Jevani, Pasni and Ormara. The global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, stated alarm over the reports of mass arrests and the imposition of the emergency law in Gwadar. “Putting a blanket ban on all forms of public gatherings amounts to repression of the right to protest and sends a chilling message that there is no room for dissent,” the organization said in a tweet. Significantly, Balochistan High Court (BHC) has expressed its resentment over the police crackdown in Gwadar and asked the deputy commissioners of Gwadar and Kech as well as their police officials to submit their written explanations by January 15, 2023. A division bench of the BHC, including Justice Hashim Khan Kakar and Justice Shaukat Rakhshani, delivered this order while hearing a petition filed by senior lawyers, Amanullah Kunrani and Rahib Buledi. In reality, instead of false promises, the people of Balochistan need action on the ground, so that they can be beneficiaries of progress and development in their own province. Bearing in mind the decades of neglect, it will take time to address the people’s grievances, but the government needs to deal with the matters with utmost care, empathy and amicably rather than resorting to the use of violence with a vengeance, unwarranted coercion and persecution. Source: al arabiya post

The Baloch National Movement (BNM) has condemned the crackdown on people protesting in the Pakistani port city of Gwadar that led to the arrest of nearly 100 people. "BNM strongly condemns the police violence against the peaceful protesters in Gwadar, but simultaneously believes that we must direct our struggle and national strength on the right path instead of wasting it in oblivion," the BNM spokesperson said in a statement. The BNM spokesperson said that Gwadar had been declared the hub of the China-Pakistan Corridor (CPEC) by Islamabad but the people of Balochistan are not only unhappy with these projects and are expressing their displeasure through continuous protests. The BNM spokesperson said that attempts are being made to silence the Baloch through forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings in Gwadar and Balochistan. This rebuke comes as more than 100 people have been arrested in Gwadar as the provincial government struck with an iron fist at protesters and imposed an emergency law that prohibits gathering five or more people, the Dawn newspaper reported. "Continuing the same strategy, Gwadar had been under siege for the last six days, and a crackdown had been going on against the political workers. More than 100 political workers had been arrested from Gwadar and Kech districts and the majority had been either transferred to other cities or forcibly disappeared," the BNM statement added. The Dawn report added that the arrests come a day after the provincial government imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in Gwadar. "There will be a ban on all kinds of rallies, protests, sit-ins and gatherings of five or more people in the port city of Gwadar," the Balochistan home department said in a statement. Despite the imposition of Section 144, workers and supporters of the Maulana Rehman-led Haq Do Tehreek (HDT) continued their protest, demanding the release of all people and activists of the movement. Tensions continued to simmer in Pakistan's port city of Gwadar with protests continuing after clashes with supporters of the HDT. The clashes occurred this month between locals and security forces in Gwadar as protests against illegal fishing turned violent after some people were arrested in the port city. The provincial government had contacted Jamaat-i-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch to help restore normalcy and resolve the issues that have become a bone of contention between the government and the HDT, the Dawn newspaper reported citing sources. Source: ANI

More than 100 people have been arrested in Balochistan’s port city of Gwadar as the provincial government struck with an iron fist at protesters and imposed an emergency law that prohibits the gathering of five or more people. The arrests come a day after the provincial government imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in Gwadar, the Dawn newspaper reported. “There will be a ban on all kinds of rallies, protests, sit-ins and gatherings of five or more people in the port city of Gwadar,” the Balochistan home department said in a statement. Despite Section 144, workers and supporters of the Maulana Rehman-led Haq Do Tehreek (HDT) continued their protest, demanding the release of all people and activists of the movement. Tensions continued to simmer in Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar with protests continuing after clashes with supporters of the ‘Haq Do Tehreek’ (HDT). The clashes occurred this month between locals and security forces in Gwadar as protests against illegal fishing turned violent after some people were arrested in the port city. The provincial government had contacted Jamaat-i-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch to help restore normalcy and resolve the issues that have become a bone of contention between the government and the HDT, the Dawn newspaper reported citing sources. After clashes between protesters and the police in several areas of Gwadar. Protestors have blocked the main highway linking the port city with other districts of the Makran division. The Pakistani newspaper said the port city remained cut off from Karachi and other areas and all incoming and outgoing traffic was suspended. The HDT activists have been protesting in the city for nearly two months. Their demands include an end to illegal trawling in Gwadar’s water, the high number of security checkpoints and an opening up of trade on the Pak-Iran border. As the HDT protests threaten to blow up on Pakistan’s ruling establishment, the country’s media has urged provincial authorities in Balochistan to exercise restraint. “While violence cannot be condoned, the state needs to handle this issue with care,” the Dawn newspaper said in an editorial.  Source: Always First

According to European Foundation for South Asian Studies, Pakistan in general, and the province of Balochistan in particular, has been no stranger to demands by vast sections of its population for basic rights that have either been denied to them or snatched away from them. Too often for comfort, these demands have been staked through violent protests involving senseless loss of lives. Over the past month, however, a mass movement by the residents of Gwadar, the Pakistani port city that is a major hub of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), demonstrated how peaceful protest rallies by tens of thousands of wronged men, women and children could achieve so much more than resorting to violence could. Balochistan is very important to both Pakistan and China because of its strategic position, natural resources and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor which ends in Gwadar and provides China access to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, the second half of November Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman Baloch, a leader of a native fishing tribe, has been leading the largely local Gwadar Ko Huqooq Do Tehreek and staging massive rallies and sit-ins in various parts of the province’s Makran division to press for the demands of Gwadar’s residents who number about one hundred thousand. Meanwhile, traders and businesspeople also joined the movement and complete shut-down strikes and blocking of national highways connecting Gwadar with the economic hub of Karachi complemented the rallies and sit-ins. Also, the main demands of the movement included a ban on illegal trawling in the Arabian Sea, including massive Chinese fishing operations.. The protestors also demanded the removal of checkpoints erected for the security of Chinese nationals involved in CPEC projects and called for the provision of basic amenities like drinking water, health, education, and employment opportunities that have long been denied in Gwadar despite the billions of dollars that have been pumped into the Gwadar port and other related projects under the CPEC. How the situation in Gwadar will play out and what implications that will have on the CPEC will be known in times to come, but what is already amply clear and what the Gwadar Ko Huqooq Do Tehreek has proved fairly comprehensively is that peaceful protest is still a potent tool, and that in Gwadar and other similarly suppressed places, lasting success and progress can only be achieved through taking the local population along, according to European Foundation for South Asian Studies. Source : Islam khabar

    The successful output of non-violent protests by the Gwadar Ko Huqooq Do Tehreek (Movement for Gwadar's rights) against Pakistani oppressive authority shows the power of the people and  the vulnerability of Imran Khan's government. Pakistan in general, and the province of Balochistan in particular, has been no stranger to demands by vast sections of its population for basic rights that have either been denied to them or snatched away from them. Too often for comfort, these demands have been staked through violent protests involving senseless loss of lives, according to European Foundation for South Asian Studies However, a mass movement by the residents of Gwadar, the Pakistani port city that is a major hub of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), demonstrated how peaceful protest rallies by tens of thousands of wronged men, women and children could achieve so much more than resorting to violence could. Balochistan is very important to both Pakistan and China because of its strategic position, natural resources and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor which ends in Gwadar and provides China access to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.On the other hand, the second half of November Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman Baloch, a leader of a native fishing tribe, has been leading the largely local Gwadar Ko Huqooq Do Tehreek and staging massive rallies and sit-ins in various parts of the province's Makran division to press for the demands of Gwadar's residents who number about one hundred thousand. Meanwhile, traders and businesspeople also joined the movement and complete shut-down strikes and blocking of national highways connecting Gwadar with the economic hub of Karachi complemented the rallies and sit-ins. Also, the main demands of the movement included a ban on illegal trawling in the Arabian Sea, including massive Chinese fishing operations.. The protestors also demanded the removal of checkpoints erected for the security of Chinese nationals involved in CPEC projects and called for the provision of basic amenities like drinking water, health, education, and employment opportunities that have long been denied in Gwadar despite the billions of dollars that have been pumped into the Gwadar port and other related projects under the CPEC. How the situation in Gwadar will play out and what implications that will have on the CPEC will be known in times to come, but what is already amply clear and what the Gwadar Ko Huqooq Do Tehreek has proved fairly comprehensively is that peaceful protest is still a potent tool, and that in Gwadar and other similarly suppressed places, lasting success and progress can only be achieved through taking the local population along, according to European Foundation for South Asian Studies. Source:  ANI